Warner Brothers Pulls Canadian Previews

A number of readers let us know that Reuters and others are reporting that Warner Brothers is canceling movie previews in Canadian theaters, starting with Oceans Thirteen. A Warner VP said, "Within the first week of a film's release, you can almost be certain that somewhere out there a Canadian copy will show up." Recently, the International Intellectual Property Association placed Canada on its Priority Watch List, along with the likes of Argentina, China, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela. This community knows, thanks to Michael Geist, that the claim is mostly ficiton.

Comments

Lucky Canadians

[DJCacophony]

Too bad they don't do that here, too, so I wouldn't have to sit through so many previews just to see the movie I paid to see.

Re:Lucky Canadians

[Nos.]

Those are called trailers, and they're not stopping those. They're canceling early screenings of new movies.

Re:Lucky Canadians

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the movie you were watching was I, Robot, and that those were the *closing* credits.

Re:Lucky Canadians

[Fireflymantis]

As a Canadian, I can confirm this. I once tried to set up a little home brew theater in my igloo, but the projector melted in the roof. A fire started briefly, but fortunately the melting ice quickly snuffed it out. It goes without saying that the projector was toasted in the incident. Whats worse though is that my igloo insurance policy did not cover the damages.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

[Tackhead]

> the studio said it will immediately halt all "promotional and word-of-mouth screenings"

Prediction: by August, there'll be a press release noting that revenues for Ocean's Thirteen and Harry Potter were low, and that it'sss all the faults of those tricksy pirateses stealing their preciousss, and that (surprise, surprise), the only solution is that the Canadian government "harmonize" its rules with the US by passing something equivalent to (or worse than) the DMCA.

Awesome!

[jollyreaper]

Now what can we do as a nation to get them to pull their crappy movies from our theaters?

Re:That's Fiction, Not Ficiton

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn how to spel. I'm dylsexic you insnestitive cold!

Movie Piracy Helps Prevent Gun Crime

[Bert the Turtle]

Come on, we all know that despite a similar or larger number of firearms per person in Canada that violent crime and gun crime in particular is much lower there. It is obvious that having the opportunity to get cheap pirate movies keeps Canadians from killing each other. As such, I call on the US government to decriminalise piracy. Won't someone please think of the children!

Re:Shooting themselves in the foot

[mentaldingo]

Indeed. This is the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I joined the MPAA.

Re:Seems straightforward to me

[orclevegam]

Most of the quality rips you find on bitorrent and such are actually ripped from inside the projection room as opposed to down in the audience. This won't cut back on pre-release copies in the slightest, and honestly I'd bet most of the copies floating around now are from the US and not Canada. This is mostly a PR thing to try and pressure the Canadian government into bending over and lubing up for the MPAA, and has nothing at all to do with piracy.

Re:WTF are they thinking?!

[superbus1929]

No, this isn't about any sort of legitimate concern; this is a political move.

Warner - and the MPAA by extension - want control of Canada the way they have control of America. This is a political tool to get publicity, and get a few ignorant members or a Tory Parliament to bite and draft up a version of the DMCA for Canada.

The message is clear: assimilate or else.

Re:WTF are they thinking?!

[Fallingcow]

Exactly.

This has nothing to do with what they say it does, and everything to do with making everyone think that Canada is some major rogue when it comes to IP law. This move is, itself, an advertisement for their political position.